THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996                 TAG: 9607260495
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   42 lines

EX-COUNSELOR CHARGED WITH RAPING A STUDENT ASSAULT ALLEGEDLY TOOK PLACE IN HOTEL RESTROOM DURING OUTING IN NORFOLK.

A former counselor at the Barry Robinson Center was charged Thursday with raping a 17-year-old student in a hotel restroom last month, police spokesman Larry Hill said.

Lionell Spruill Jr., 30, was arrested Thursday afternoon, Hill said. He was charged with rape, two counts of forcible sodomy and indecent liberties in a custodial manner.

Hill said the assaults started the night of June 22 when Spruill was on a school outing with two female students. He drove them to the Greyhound Bus Terminal at Brambleton Avenue and Granby Street to pick up a third student.

Spruill asked the two girls whether they needed to use a restroom. The 17-year-old said yes, and they went to the Howard Johnson Hotel in the 700 block of Monticello Ave., across the street from the bus station.

When the girl went inside the restroom, a man followed and assaulted her, Hill said.

The assault remained unreported until July 17, when Barry Robinson officials ``became suspicious that something occurred and interviewed the victim,'' Hill said.

That's when they called police.

In a statement released Thursday, school officials said: ``The Barry Robinson Center discovered and reported the alleged criminal activities of a staff member to a Norfolk division of Child Protective Services and the Norfolk Police Department. The individual in question was suspended and subsequently resigned his position. The center is fully cooperating with the criminal investigation.''

Officials at Barry Robinson, which is a treatment center for troubled children in Norfolk, would not say how long Spruill had been a counselor there.

Spruill, of the 700 block of Lancer Drive in Portsmouth, is scheduled to appear in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court today at 10a.m.

The case is being investigated by Investigator J.E. McHenry of the sexual assault division and by the Department of Social Services.

KEYWORDS: RAPE SEXUAL ASSAULT by CNB